Why I’m switching to the Verizon iPhone: I need a phone

Yesterday, my cohorts weighed in on the question on countless iPhone owners’ minds right now — should I ditch AT&T and buy an iPhone from Verizon? The answer is going to be different for everyone, of course. Some people have a compulsive need to switch phones constantly, so they can’t use a CDMA carrier. Some people have a need for speed and Verizon’s 3G network doesn’t cut it. Well guess what? I have a need for a phone that actually works wherever and whenever I want it to. That need is way more important than any need I have to swap phones every day or download iTunes tracks at lightning-fast speeds. I want to make phone calls. I want to receive emails instantly. I want to load Web pages and refresh apps any time, anywhere. AT&T, fast as it might be, just can’t hang.

Before AT&T scored Apple’s iPhone exclusively in the U.S., its network was solid. Once tons of iPhones began hammering its airwaves constantly, however, things changed — especially in big cities. Calls dropped more frequently than they connected, data pipes were clogged, and the iPhone experience on AT&T pretty much became a disaster in many regions. Now, it wasn’t all AT&T’s fault. Reports emerged that Apple, which was new to the cell phone game, didn’t quite know how to make the most efficient use of cellular networks. Internationally, iPhone users on several other networks found themselves experiencing problems as well, but none were as bad as AT&T. To AT&T’s credit, things have improved a lot over the past six months or so, but I still drop calls constantly in Connecticut and in New York City, where I spend most of my time.

I don’t think we’ll see the same thing happen with Verizon Wireless. The nation’s top carrier has had over three years to prepare for the iPhone and I think it’s ready. Beyond that, a video showing what appears to be parts from the upcoming Verizon iPhone surfaced recently, and it looks like we may be in store for a redesigned antenna. Antennagate might not have affected iPhone sales much, much it definitely impacts the user experience. I don’t use a case and I’m sick of dropping calls every time I accidentally touch the black strip in the lower left corner of the phone. I think Apple spent a ton of time on this issue following the Antennagate affair, and I think the new model will definitely be improved.

There are obvious downsides to switching and I’m well aware of them. Verizon’s 3G is typically slower than AT&T’s network, battery life will probably be a tiny bit worse, and I’ll lose the ability to use voice and data at the same time unless Verizon shocks us with a workaround today. But you know what? I dropped five calls before 9:00AM this morning and I just can’t take it anymore. I’m someone who needs to be connected at all times, in all places, and I need to be able to rely on that connection because by business often depends on it. AT&T simply doesn’t seem to be up to the task — I really hope Verizon will succeed where AT&T continues to fail.

This is why reading boygenius pisses me off sometimes. This guy is angry and bashing att cause he drops calls on his iphone. Your so sure verizon will not drop calls once millions activate with them huh? Cant wait to see you eat your words “IF” verizon gets the iphone. Get outta here

Joymrt03

At&t is for the Gay’s and Transgendered Wierdo’s.

Matthewdon

Sure, ATT has fast 3G speeds. It’s so fast that it constantly moves! One moment, I’m on 3g, and the next moment, 3g left and took my phone call with it, leaving me alone with the little “E”. I will be making the switch as soon as I can.

Rusty

The only thing I am hopeful of is that ATT goes back to offering unlimmited Data to combat the Verizon head to head competition.

RobInFL

One thing that does not get discussed enough are the strengths and weaknesses of each network. Verizon has a technically more advanced voice network. CDMA is newer than GSM (which is based upon ancient TDMA) and can hold onto a voice connection even when the signal is much weaker than a GSM network. ATT has a technically superior 3G data network. The network technology is much newer and still has some room to grow. CDMA data (EVDO Rev A) has not been upgraded in a few years and no carrier is pushing for upgrades (even though there had been proposed upgrades). EVDO is as fast as it will ever get, and those who require speed should look elsewhere.

Anonymous

Well I remember having AT&T back in 1998 and in 2004, Dude At&t has never been solid. I remember back then that they always use to blame the phones too until I ask them which phone should I get then, a honest store manager told me, it’s not your phone it’s the network. I’ll never forget that.

TURTLE

I can’t wait until the iPhone goes to Verizon for several reasons; all the cry babies and idiots that shouldn’t have a smartphone to begin with can finally alleviate the AT&T network, AT&T will now start selling 4G ANDROID SUPERPHONES. The success of the iPhone has been its appeal to everyone with its elementary interface and lack of features, everyone from a 3 year old to a 80 year old can figure it out and use it. Now thats great if your upgrading your grandma’s phone to an iphone, great choice for her no doubt. VERIZON on the other hand, has never had the iphone and actually continuously trained all of its employees on the benefits of ANDROID over the iPhone and had tremendous success doing so and has been selling the best ANDROID phones on the market, hands down. Sprint was lucky to receive the EVO and also a great success and in a lot of ways probably saved that company from bankruptcy. AT&T does not sell any ANDROID phones with version 2.2 or higher and thats probably because of shady agreements with Steve Jobs and exclusivity of the iPhone and the rest of the politics dealing with APPLE include. Now that the iphone exclusivity is finally over, AT&T’s counter strike will be the unleashing of 4G ANDROID SUPERPHONES!! It is going to take all of the success of Verizon’s DROID’s and Sprints HTC EVO and release them into the wild. Most people will just say that they don’t use any of the features of these 4G multimedia SUPERPHONES, and my response will be “of course you don’t use any of these features, you own an iPhone 4, my GRANDMA has one of those”

Anonymous

Pfft. My great-grandma uses an iPhone. Not really, but I couldn’t resist getting into a lame pissing match over gadgets. Aren’t I cool? I’m so cutting edge! No grammaFone for me! (Again, not really, but as I said, I couldn’t resist. I know I’m being snarky and dickish, please forgive me.)

Don23lucia

switched to Verizon after being with AT&T for 6 years and couldnt be happier wht my DROID X is just as fast and i havent had one dropped call in 6 months of the switch. I dont even think about the iphone anymore let alone one for Verizon. My next phone will be a 4G when the time comes.

Anonymous

Wah! :-(

Dvh

100% Agreement. My comment to friends is “do I make the decision to quit AT&T and go back to Verizon after the first hundred dropped calls or after the second hundred…” I’m in the Boston area trying to use the iPhone for work and some days I can average one or two dropped calls a day. I believe AT&T’s network has problems on several levels and they’ve had enough time to fix it – and they haven’t. In AT&T’s problem markets I think you’ll see people jumping ship in droves.

It boils down to the ability to reliably make phone calls. The iPhone on Verizon should be perfectly fine – thank you. Obviously we’ll see.

Very Smart

you’re not very smart. . . . if you wanted to switch to verizon, you could have long ago. . . there are plenty of phones they have that are at least as good if not better than the iPhone. You obviously can’t seem to let go of your iPhone is your problem, since you have dealt with dropped calls for years from AT&T it’s not their fault

Joymrt03

At&t is for the Gay’s and Transgendered Wierdo’s.

dwinsmith

Tons of people wrote on the other stories about “Why I’m Not switching to the Verizon iPhone” that they were just AT&T fanboys so does that make this author a Verizon fanboy????

ATT Happy

AHHHHHH, I just can’t understand all the dropped call complaints. I’ve had maybe 2 dropped calls in the past year (not counting remote valleys). It must be an iPhone problem as I don’t use one.

Anonymous

I think the ATT network is flawed. I still have my iphone 4, but have sidelined it for the same reason you have. It just drops calls. I am in the dallas area, and it drops calls here and everywhere I go. I have the evo with several extra batteries. That suits me for now. I plan on an adroid lte verizon phone in a few months. Sprint’s 4g is not all that worderful either.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FZKQKKZOIMO4XCUWCLYKYVCM34 Dave Brown

Right on Johnathan! When I was a very unhappy iPOS user for 14 months going through five of the then current 3G POS phones, I would constantly complain to AT&T & Apple that the ‘phone’ wasn’t a F’ing toy to play music and do time wasting social networking on, it was a BUSINESS TOOL, and the crap ass hardware and network created the perfect shitstorm to make me look like a constant fool for rarely being able to keep a call up, always having to apologize, and have people constantly thinking, ‘if this guy can’t even communicate with me effectively, why should I do business with him?’. The one thing I did miss with the switch to Verizon and Android was the simultaneous voice & data, but I’m much happier doing one thing really well at a time vs, two things that weren’t even half-ass at a time.

Gabrielmikesell

I think something this reporter needs more than a “phone that works” is a “grammer checker” that works.

Your

You can switch phones all you want on verizon by yourself. *228 option 2 on the phone you want to switch too. probably would take the same amount of time as switching a sim card.

Your Follower

Get Blackberry – the Godfather of all communication devices!

I mean communication devices, not toys/games/apps/etc – If communication is important to you, than there is only one choice. iPhone will not be an decent communication device in the next few years (or until they prioritize voice quality, reception, etc).

Otherwise, have fun playing with your apps when your calls are dropped off.

Anonymous

Eh, the problem is that Android and iOS phones are improving in the communication aspect, catching up to RIM’s admittedly superior functionality. Meanwhile, RIM has punted on improving their mobile computing device functionality until the hardware catches up with their software needs. (I’m thinking of the QNX stack.) The PlayBook is a stop gap measure that doesn’t really address people’s phone needs. It’s really more of a sticking-a-finger-in-the-tablet-pie strategy so they don’t get left behind in the tablet market.

RIM really needs to get its sh!t together. They’ve got some awesome technology and they’re challenging Nokia in developing countries, but they’re lagging, not leading like they used to do.

Deval

As a Sprint employee, and customer, I’m interested to see how this takes off on Verizon. My predictions are that there will be an exodus of users from AT&T, regardless of what the fan boys say, to Verizon, not huge, but significant. The real push for Verizon will be their own existing customers who want to upgrade. AT&T consistently for the last few quarters have activated 1-2 million iPhones, so imagine even half of that on Verizon instead.

I can imagine how much this cost Verizon just to get, and when they will break even, so it should be interesting.

*sits back with coffee*

Anonymous

It’s a cash cow regardless of carrier. In addition to the carriers revenue, they get a commission on app store sales. Pure profit in that arena, as it’s maintained by Apple.

Anonymous

I think you’re being overly conservative in your estimate. We’ll probably see at least equal new subscriptions for the iPhone on Verizon as on ATT, but probably more, because there is pent up demand. (The level of this pent up demand is really unknown, but it is there.) Whenever the demand curve smooths out, we’ll see ATT and Verizon iPhone sales roughly equivalent.

Other than that, I think you’re pretty spot on in your analysis.

Int’l Iphone user

One of the reasons I won’t switch from At&T is the fact that I travel internationally and with CDMA, I couldn’t get my phone to work if I need it in the middle of Italy or in Brazil.
I do get dropped calls, but since I started using Google voice, I’ve been able to do a 4 hour conference call from my Iphone without dropping the call once. So now, if I’m with a wi-fi connection and need to make a long call I’ll just dial it through Google Voice.

Duncan

“I want to make phone calls. I want to receive emails instantly”

Maybe an iphone isn’t for you.

Dale

Hi Duncan !
I agree with you. I have a basic phone and a Peek e-mail/messaging device. I only need e-mail and phone, nothing more.

I have lifetime service on the Peek ( for the life of the device ) and my phone is a Tracfone with service until 06/2016.

with service untilwith

Dale

Hi All !

Please excuse the ” with service untilwith ” sentence.

Anonymous

Right on! I’m a tracfone user, too. I sort of wish they made a 3G Data only iPod Touch. I generally don’t mind carrying two devices and I don’t need to be always connected, although it would be nice if I could do so inexpensively.

The nice thing about the tracfone is that there are always promo codes online, and combined with the double minutes plan that was included when I bought the phone, I spend about $20/month. (I use skype and gtalk on my laptop whenever possible.)

I know that you and I are going to be very different than most mobile users posting here, but it sounds like you and I have each found a great low cost solution. I know I’m going to sound like a luddite, but those of you that need phone functionality above all else, consider trying a PAYG phone. It’s not going to cost much to test out if it works for you.

Dale

Hi Marcosemalo !

Yes, we are different than the other posters because we aren’t addicted to the need to be connected to the web every second. And, we actually care about the costs.

And with today’s economy, paying over $ 100.00 for a phone and $70.00 + a month is extravagent !

minutes

Anonymous

Oh, I don’t fault those that need or perceive the need to be connected as much as possible. While I am no longer an early adopter (too time consuming), I am glad that there are early adopters out there.

That said, I am much happier not being a prisoner to my mobile. (Why do you think they call them “cell” phones?!) Half the time when I am out, I accidentally on purpose forget to bring my phone.

Although I also have to admit, I’m not popular or in demand, either. :) That could explain why I don’t worry too much about my phone.

Tymowens

No talk & surf at the same time… So if 5 people are on the hotspur you cant answer a phone call without cutting the data momentarily… That would suck.

Tymowens

No talk & surf at the same time… So if 5 people are on the hotspur you cant answer a phone call without cutting the data momentarily… That would suck.

logic…

if you drop 5 calls every morning before 9am why the hell have you stayed with att this long?

http://twitter.com/skylite22 Mr. Brett

Just yesterday there were several posts written about why NOT to switch to the Verizon iPhone…. now that its released, you NEED one? Stick to your guns man.